“But it was all so long ago. Why should it matter?”
Coltrane didn’t have an answer.
5
T HE LAST RAYS OF SUNSET AGAIN OUTLINED SIX BASKETBALL players on a court at Muscle Beach in Venice: the same court where Coltrane had met Greg the previous day. Almost exactly twenty-four hours ago, Coltrane thought. Seated with Jennifer on the same level of the same concrete bleacher at the sideline, an eerie sense of doubling overtook him.
“Greg ought to be here anytime now,” Coltrane said.
An ocean breeze made Jennifer shiver. “I’m surprised he didn’t ask you to meet him at the police station.”
“He lives only a few blocks away. I guess he figured it would be more convenient to meet down here.”
The sun dipped into the ocean, its crimson now so faint that the players stopped. Coltrane overheard their conversation: gibes at one another, plans to get a beer, promises to meet next week. Déjà vu made him squirm.
The players headed along the walkway. The sun eased below the horizon. Skateboarders became fewer as the temperature cooled. Streetlights struggled to dispel the darkness.
“He’s fifteen minutes late,” Coltrane said.
“Maybe he got held up by a phone call.”
“Greg has a thing about being on time. I’ve never known him to keep me waiting.”
Another fifteen minutes passed.
“It must be an awfully long phone call,” Jennifer said. “So what do you think we should do?”
“I guess we don’t have any choice except to stay here until—”
“Is that him?”
Coltrane looked toward where Jennifer pointed. A heavyset man wearing sneakers, jeans, and a leather windbreaker stepped from behind a shadowy wall next to the court and approached them.
“No.” Uneasy, Coltrane stood.
“Does he look like Ilkovic?”
“I can’t tell in the dark at this distance. He doesn’t have a mustache. But Ilkovic might have shaved his.”
They stepped from the bleachers.
“He keeps coming in this direction,” Jennifer said.
“Then why don’t we walk in that direction.”
They started past palm trees, heading up the beach.
The man followed.
“Shit,” Coltrane said.
They started to run.
“Wait!” the man called.
They ran faster.
“Mr. Coltrane, stop! Lieutenant Bass sent me!”
They faltered.
As the man hurried to catch up, Coltrane turned, straining to see in the shadows, wondering if he was making a mistake. His misgivings lessened when a streetlight revealed the badge the man pulled out.
“I work with Lieutenant Bass in the Threat Management Unit,” the man said. Tall, he had a solid-looking body, his chest, shoulders, and upper arms developed like a weight lifter’s. His brown hair was trimmed to almost military shortness. His matching brown eyes had a no-nonsense steadiness. “Sergeant Nolan.”
Coltrane shook hands with him—not surprisingly, Nolan’s grip had force—then introduced Jennifer.
“Greg couldn’t get here?” Coltrane asked.
“It’s complicated. He didn’t think it would be safe.”
Jennifer visibly tensed.
“I’ve been watching you to see if anybody else is watching you,” Nolan said.
“And?” Apprehensive, Coltrane glanced around. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but the beach seemed deserted.
For the first time, Nolan’s gaze lost its steadiness. “Why don’t we get out of the open? We need a place to talk.”
6
T HE RESTAURANT HAD A CHEERY C HRISTMAS ATMOSPHERE —a tinsel-covered tree in a corner, strings of winking lights on the walls, tiny wreaths around candles on the tables, all of which were lost on Coltrane as he and Jennifer sat across from Nolan. Again, Coltrane endured an intense overlapping of time, as though he still sat across from Greg the previous evening.
“Okay, the good news first,” Nolan said. “Lieutenant Bass contacted the FBI, who in turn got in touch with the UN war-crimes tribunal. Interpol got involved. They’re trying to find how Ilkovic left Europe. The FBI’s doing the same on this end—to learn how he entered the country. They’re checking the passenger manifests on all flights that came into this country from Europe during a one-week time frame: from when you left Bosnia to when you started getting the messages on your answering machine. The UN tribunal has asked various European nations to compare the names on those airline manifests to lists of sanctioned passport holders. The FBI’s doing the same with passports issued by the United States. If we can determine the alias Ilkovic is using, that’ll take us a long way toward tracking him down.”
“Assuming he keeps the name he traveled under,” Coltrane said.
“Assuming.” Nolan looked uncomfortable. “Meanwhile, an LAPD bomb squad went through your town house. Behind your furnace, they found enough plastic explosive to level half the block.”
“That’s the good news?” Jennifer murmured.
“After the bomb was disabled, a team of LAPD electronic-surveillance specialists went through your home. Ilkovic had microphones in every room. I hope you didn’t discuss any secrets there.”
Coltrane felt as if a chunk of glass was wedged in his throat.
“They also found microphones in your friend’s place next door,” Nolan said, “and at your place, Ms. Lane.”
“Jesus,” she said.
“I don’t know what you mean by good news,” Coltrane said. “I haven’t heard any so far.”
“It’s very good. Where did Ilkovic get the plastic explosive? The microphones—where did they come from? Every alphabet-soup agency you can think of is following those leads. A lot of muscle is being flexed to give you help.”
“Then if everything’s so positive, why do you look like you need root canal?”
Nolan glanced down at his hands, then fixed his gaze on Coltrane, reluctantly continuing. “The reason Lieutenant Bass didn’t meet you as planned is that you were followed when you went to talk to him yesterday.”
“What?”
“After you and he concluded your conversation and separated, the person who followed you—we have to assume it was Ilkovic—shifted his attention to Lieutenant Bass.”
“Are you telling me something happened to Greg?”
“No. Lieutenant Bass—”
“Stop calling him that. Please. He’s my friend. Call him—”
“Greg hasn’t been harmed. Nor has his family.”
Coltrane breathed out.
“But last night, his home was broken into.”
“What?”
“That doesn’t mean it was Ilkovic.” Jennifer tried to sound hopeful. “It might have been a crackhead breaking in, looking for something to steal to sell for drugs.”
“Unfortunately, we know for certain it was Ilkovic,” Nolan said. “The message left absolutely no doubt.”
“Message?” Coltrane felt pressure behind his ears.
Nolan hesitated. “Before I explain, I want you to know how sorry I am about all this. So is Lieutenant Bass. Greg. He wants me to tell you he’d have been here to talk to you himself, but that would have compromised your safety. Now that you’ve disappeared, there’s too great a risk that Ilkovic might be following Greg in the hopes that Greg will lead him to you.”
“Sergeant Nolan, why don’t you tell me what you’re doing your damnedest not to.”
Coltrane had seldom seen anyone appear more uneasy. The sergeant glanced down again, seemed to muster his resolve, looked up, sighed, and pulled out a Walkman from his windbreaker pocket. “Ilkovic left an audiotape on the coffee table in Greg’s living room.”
Coltrane reached.
“But I’m not sure you want to listen to the copy we made,” Nolan said.
“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t I want to?”
“Sometime after midnight last night, Ilkovic wen
t to the hospital where your friend worked.”
“Oh my God,” Jennifer whispered.
“The nurses and physicians your friend worked with in the emergency ward say he went to the cafeteria to get something to eat around one A . M . He never came back.”
Coltrane felt so great a tightness in his chest that he feared he might be having a heart attack.
“The break-in at Greg’s house occurred around four A . M .,” Nolan said. “We know that because when he left, he threw a lamp through a window so Greg would be startled awake. A little after four—that’s when Greg found the tape.”
“From one until four.” Jennifer’s voice was taut.
Nolan seemed to be waiting for them to make conclusions.
“That’s how much time”—Jennifer shook her head—“Ilkovic had with . . .”
“It’s Daniel on the tape?” Coltrane’s stomach cramped.
“I deeply regret having to tell you. The bomb squad found his body in his living room when they went in to search his town house this morning.”
Coltrane’s mind swirled. I’m going to pass out, he thought.
Jennifer’s hand found his and squeezed. He held her, feeling her tears mixing with his own.
After what seemed forever, he eased away, hardly aware that customers in the restaurant were staring at him—because the only thing that occupied his attention was the Walkman.
He reached for it.
“I don’t recommend that,” Nolan said. “Greg felt you had a right to hear it if you were determined to. But I really don’t—”
“I have to know.”
The Walkman had a set of small earphones. Hands shaking, Coltrane put them on. He felt disturbingly remote from his body, as if he was seeing everything through the reverse end of a telescope. With a finger that didn’t seem to belong to him, he pressed the Walkman’s play button.
A scream made him flinch. It was the most pain-ridden sound he had ever heard. Daniel.
It stopped.
“Say a few words to your friend,” a guttural voice with a Slavic accent ordered, sounding amused.
Daniel’s scream reached a new pitch of agony. It dwindled and became strident breathing.
“Speak to him!”
“Mitch . . .” Daniel sounded pathetically weak. “I didn’t tell him a thing.”
“You didn’t betray him because you don’t know anything!” the guttural voice said. “But you would have!”
Daniel shrieked again, on and on, communicating agony beyond endurance.
Silence again. Coltrane had no doubt that he had just heard Daniel dying.
“Photographer,” the guttural voice said. “I’ve got pictures of the party. I’ll mail them to your home. Why don’t you stop by and pick them up?”
A click was followed by the hiss of blank tape.
Tears streaming down his face, Coltrane removed the earphones. Jennifer took them and put them on, her normally tan face ashen as she rewound the tape and pressed the play button.
Coltrane’s throat felt paralyzed. “There’s an echo. It sounds like”—he strained to make his voice work—“like they’re in a cellar or something.”
“Which your friend’s town house doesn’t have, although it does have a garage underneath,” Nolan said. “But the garage showed no evidence that your friend was killed there.”
“You’re talking about blood.”
Nolan spread his hands, seeming to apologize. “There would have been a lot of it. Ilkovic used a knife.”
Jennifer yanked off the earphones and jabbed the Walkman’s stop button. Her eyes were dilated, the black of their pupils so huge that the blue of her irises had almost disappeared. “I’ve never heard . . . What kind of monster . . .”
“I’m not sure there’s an answer to that question,” Nolan said. “I’ve never dealt with anything like this. You need to move to a safe site where we can protect you.”
“Move?”
“A hotel we’re familiar with. A place where we can control the environment and watch you around the clock.”
“You mean put us in a trap and make us targets,” Coltrane said.
“It wouldn’t be like that at all. Security would be so tight, Ilkovic wouldn’t have a chance of finding where you were.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” Coltrane said. “Jennifer and I aren’t going to let ourselves be prisoners in a hotel.”
“Then we can guard you where you’re staying now. If you think it’s more comfortable—”
“It’s safer,” Coltrane said. “The reason it’s safer is that nobody knows where it is, including the police. Suppose I told you where we’re staying. What if Ilkovic grabbed you? What if he did to you what he did to Daniel? From what I heard on the tape, I think Ilkovic was right: The only reason Daniel didn’t tell him where I was is that Daniel didn’t know.”
7
A FTER GREAT PAIN , A FORMAL FEELING COMES . Coltrane remembered having read that in an English class when he was in college at USC. A poem by Emily Dickinson. It had impressed itself upon him because it had so perfectly described the emotion with which he most identified: grief. This is the hour of lead—He felt like that now. Having struggled to maintain his survival instincts, to get back to the sanctuary of Packard’s house, he had only enough energy left to make sure that the doors were locked and that he and Jennifer were alone.
In shadows, he sank onto one of the sleeping bags in the living room. After a time, he heard Jennifer settle wearily next to him. The house was so perfectly quiet that he heard her weeping. Hollowness overtook him. He stared up at the murky ceiling, absolutely emotionally exhausted, but he knew that a further torture awaited him, that no matter how much he craved the release, he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He shivered. As freezing persons recollect the Snow—/First Chill—then Stupor, then the letting go — But he couldn’t manage to let go. “Daniel,” he whispered. “Daniel.”
8
H E AWOKE AS EXHAUSTED AS WHEN SLEEP HAD FINALLY overtaken him. The faint light of dawn glowed through the windows. Turning onto his side, toward Jennifer, he groggily noted that she wasn’t there. He assumed that she must have gone to the bathroom. He closed his eyes. But when he opened them again and the light was brighter and she still wasn’t next to him, he sat up, worried.
Various explanations occurred to him. Perhaps she had decided to lie down in another room. Then why hadn’t she taken her sleeping bag with her? Perhaps she was showering. Then why didn’t he hear the muted hiss of water?
When he stood, his body ached, grief racking it. The hope that this had all been a nightmare and that Daniel was still alive dwindled the more his troubled consciousness took control. He glanced at his watch. A little after seven. Perhaps she’s getting something to eat in the kitchen, he thought. But when he checked, she wasn’t there. Perhaps she was using the tub instead of the shower. In that case, the water would already have been run; sleeping, he wouldn’t have heard it. But the bathroom on this floor wasn’t occupied.
There was a bathroom on each of the two upper levels, however. He wondered if she had gone up to one of them—to avoid making noise and waking him. Hopeful, he climbed the steps to the next level, failed to find her, continued to the last level, but he didn’t find her there, either. He peered onto the flower-filled terrace. It, too, was deserted.
“Jennifer?” Taking two steps at a time, he hurried down to the entryway and stared anxiously toward the bottom level. Until now, the silence in the house had seemed so profound that he had felt reluctant to call her name, concerned that she might in fact be dozing somewhere and he would wake her. “Jennifer?” he called again, and again received no answer.
About to descend toward the vault, he decided to look into the garage and see if the rented car was still there. But when he raised a hand to press the numbers on the security system’s keypad to deactivate the alarm so that he could open the garage door, his hand froze—because
an illuminated message on the keypad’s display screen indicated READY TO ARM . The security system had already been deactivated.
Why? Where had Jennifer gone? Breathing rapidly, Coltrane yanked open the garage door. In the reverberating echo, he saw that the Saturn was where he had left it. Wild, he stared down the steps toward the vault, then charged lower, fearful that Jennifer had somehow become trapped in there. But as he reached the bottom, about to open the hidden white door that concealed the metal entrance to the vault, another door caught his attention—across the large open area at the bottom of the stairs—one of the French doors that led out to the lap pool.
That door was open. He hurried outside, his nostrils tingling from the early morning’s chill. Mist floated over the long, narrow rose-tinted pool. He rushed along it, afraid that he might find her facedown in the water. Oblivious to the glint of dew on flowers and shrubs, he studied the ivy-covered slope at the back and the privacy wall that capped it.
“Jennifer?”
“What?” She appeared around the far left corner.
His knees became weak with relief.
“Is something else wrong?”
Coltrane shook his head. “I couldn’t find you. I got worried.”
“Sorry.” Jennifer looked as fatigued as he’d ever seen her. Her blond hair was lusterless. “I couldn’t sleep. I thought maybe if I went outside . . .”
“You look cold.” Coltrane put an arm around her.
She leaned against him.
“Don’t let Ilkovic do this to you, Jennifer. Don’t let him win.”
She shrugged. “Not that it matters—I solved our little mystery.”
Coltrane didn’t know what she meant.
“The different numbers.” She shrugged again.
“Numbers?”
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